This gallery of 64 images, gives clues to my exhibition of photographs, On the Impossibility of Truly Seeing what is in Front of the Eyes, which opened at The House of Friendship on the High Street, Lewes and remains until 26th March.
Each picture, at a reasonable size and distance from the eyes, can speak for itself.
Some are simple, more or less appealing, arrangements of form and colour. Others have many more layers of potential signification. Some are in obvious groups of two or three. Verbal explanation of images is perhaps even less useful than verbal explanations of music.
One room of the exhibition has rectangular glass covered images lit with sparkling lights; the other, filled with square canvas images, is very different.
I am interested in layers and veils, in transparencies and reflections. I am not interested in post-click electronic manipulations. I comment further here.
Francis Bacon once exhibited a magisterial triptich in Museo Correr in Piazza S Marco, Venezia, daylit from tall windows, consciously aware of the role of reflection from the paintings’ glass coverings on the viewer’s contemplation.
I owe much thanks to David Botibol for assembling this gallery on the eve of the show which opened in Lewes on 7th March. One day I’ll learn how properly to do this myself! Thank you David.
When I say this gallery gives clues to the exhibition, two conditions distance it. Not just the obvious one – that the viewer’s experience in a room with many images swarming around the peripheral vision, but where one is directly facing the eyes, is quite different from this electronic screen-‘n’-click you are engaged with at this moment. The other is that there are exhibition images not here; and there are images here not in the exhibition. That’s life.
